(or What I Learned About Absence and Presence During Advent)
During Advent, I decided to create space in each day for some sort of creative pursuit as a way to embrace the beautiful hope, waiting and light of the season. A way to potentially grow and reflect on my spiritual journey – to become more aware and more intentional.
Admittedly, this was a last-minute decision and a lot of the process happened on the fly. The process started strong – I created a list of content and media ideas on Day 2 that made more even more excited about my journey through Advent this year.
Before jumped into the process, I didn’t consider how busy the Advent season would be – a family gathering in Florida (and driving to and from Illinois and Florida), final exams, leading worship, finding Christmas presents for family and that pesky sinus infection and/or cold that seems to find me every winter.
Overall, the process wasn’t perfect (I may have missed 2 or 3 days along the way, and at times some of the heart of the project) – but it changed the way that I think about Advent, my relationship with God and my creative pursuits.
Before I reveal what I’ve learned, I thought it would be fun to share a sampling of the creative things that I did during Advent:
-Leading worship
-Practicing music (for leading worship)
-Reading (Viktor E. Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning)
–Learning an aria (“Lascia ch’io pianga” from Rinaldo)
–Flexing my poetry muscles (aka – trying to write a poem)
-Writing a video script (for work)
-Directing a video (for work)
-iPhone photography and videography (videography attempts while driving to/from Florida)
-Drawing and doodling
-Baking cookies (really delicious chocolate chunk cookies) for my students
-Photography
-Creating a video recording of a family Christmas tradition (with my little brother!)
ofmatterandmeaning 